Can I Sit Next to You?
by sekdaniels
Summary: Written for The Golden Snitch forum: Isn't it Romantic Challenge? Hermione has a bit of a wardrobe malfunction and who better to assist than one ridiculously uptight Severus Snape. Set after GOF but before DH. AU. With an update a few years later, by request. Two-shot.
1. Chapter 1

**The Golden Snitch - CAS Isn't It Romantic Challenge**

**Parameters: **I have here a list of 14 scenarios, songs and relationships. Half of them are romantic, half of them are not romantic at all. I won't tell you which is which.

You have to pick up a prompt you like, for example the song "Kiss the girl" and write a story romantic or not.

The entry is worth 10 points. They double of you correctly guess if the prompt you've chosen is romantic or not. I will try not to make them too obvious, but it will be hard either way since I am a hopeless romantic.

You have until the 8th of March to finish the list. Whoever finishes first gets an extra 50 points. Remember to write your house, school and the forum in your author's note for the story to count and also keep the rating down to T. No incest, smut, bestiality.

The minimum word count is 500 words.

3 (scenario) at a party, her dress has a malfunction and he steps in to help.

**A/N:** Aurora Academy of Magic - Canopus

For the [Event] Isn't it romantic - TGS

Seriously, I'm writing this stream of conscience. Super-duper AU!

Also, the title is attributed to one of the many songs my husband and I consider "ours". By Spoon, for those that might be interested.

**Word Count:** 1077

* * *

**Can I sit next to you**

It wasn't the dress she minded. Despite her reservations about "stodgy" dress codes from the Middle Ages, Hermione generally enjoyed an excuse to put on a few ruffles and frills. It was something of a guilty pleasure for her ever since her first Yule Ball. She liked the attention her transformation got her from her classmates; probably just a bit more than she should.

Tonight was no different, even though the event was more subdued. Slughorn's invite was really about her mental acuity; and there was certainly more of a need for her to cultivate the connections these sorts of affairs allowed for. Still, she enjoyed tilting the playing field a bit by shaking up her male counterparts. She might've had a late start, but Hermione Granger was becoming a swan in her last years at Hogwarts.

And one would have to be a fool not to notice it.

One said fool was sitting on a series of seats nearest the punch bowl and leering at any student who dared to linger too long. Severus Snape was not quite sure how he'd pulled the onerous pleasure of chaperoning this event (again!), but he wasn't about to enjoy it. Not. One. Bit.

He sipped as a small glass of punch (to make sure it hadn't been spiked, of course) and scanned the room methodically.

"Too close," he called out in the direction of a dancing couple whose heads seemed to be leaning in for a kiss. At a flick of the wrist, the couple found themselves each plastered against the opposite wall, scuff marks along the hardwood floor showing where they had once been. Both heads snapped in the direction of their Potions Professor who smirked at them from his perch. "Next time, it will be detention," he said, his wand raised where they could see it. The young Gryffindor female (Susan Bones, maybe?) ran for the doors, tears streaming from her eyes, while Snape noticed the young man skulk off towards a group of other boys to commiserate.

Snape could not help but smile. _Perhaps tonight won't be so dull after all._

He could not have been more right.

The air around him swirled and heaved as she threw herself into a chair immediately adjacent to his own. He pulled his hair back behind his ear to find himself face to face with a student he didn't recognize.

"Sorry, Professor," she stammered. The voice sounded familiar but he could not place it together with the elegance and grace that had, somewhat clumsily, thrown itself into the seat next to him. "I'm having a bit of an issue…" She blushed so hard that even in the dim lighting that accompanied such events, it was hard not to notice. Her hands were knotted behind her as she wriggled and giggled, struggling to stay upright.

"Are you drunk?" he asked, looking down the point of his nose at her, trying desperately to place the face before she realized he had no idea who she was. He tried to put the pieces together. _Chestnut curls, brown eyes, ivory skin… _He lost a sense of why he was looking her over and found himself, awkwardly, staring.

"What? No! No, Professor Snape. It's just—" She wiggled about some more before bringing both of her hands back to her front and hitching up the bodice of her strapless gown. She leaned in recklessly close; he could smell the cinnamon on her breath. "My zipper broke," she whispered, leaning back up and canting her head to the side.

Without so much as another word, she flipped herself around so that her back was facing him, and allowed the shawl she was wearing to fall away. Snape caught his breath. Her curls cascaded beautifully down her exposed back, almost tangling in the teeth of the broken zipper. Her shoulders and neck were laid bare, and her black velvet blended into the rooms ambient shadows, giving the illusion of her being stark naked. He had to turn his head away to gather his wits.

She turned her head over her right shoulder, pulling her hair out of the way. "Do you mind, Professor?" she asked. "Only since I cannot reach it myself," she added with a small smile.

"Oh," he mumbled, "of course." It was a simple charm, really. Considering how far afield his mind had wandered, he was grateful for that. The zipper replaced, a tension he had not noticed seemed to melt out of her shoulders.

"Thank you," she breathed, a literal sigh of relief. She looked up and over at him with a genuine smiled. "I can't begin to tell you what a panic I was in." She rearranged her shawl, attractively knotting it just below her decolletage.

Impulsively — subconsciously — he reached out and grabbed the knot, moving it slightly left of center. "There," he said. "Perfect."

She swept her hair back into place and twirled once before leaning in again, one hand instinctively reaching out to brace herself on his shoulder. "Skip the punch bowl," she whispered, her cheeks aglow. "Neville has a flask." And she whisked away in a flourish, rejoining the nearest male student on the dance floor and jumping back into the festivities.

Snape sat back, stunned.

"She catches you off-guard, doesn't she?" Snape turned, his reverie broken by the arrival of Albus Dumbledore in the seat next to his own.

"Who's that?"

"Miss Hermione Granger," Dumbledore smiled, his eyes now focused on the handful of dancing couples taking up space in the middle of the room.

_Hermione Granger?_ He couldn't reconcile the beautiful girl who had been sitting beside him just moments before with the image he had in his mind of Hermione Granger. A riot of curls and freckles; punctual, fresh-faced and obnoxiously intelligent. _With her hand in the air almost before I've finished asking the question. _ It didn't add up to the carefree young woman who was raising a toast in the center of a gaggle of friends, her laughter ringing out for all to hear.

"Has she woven her spell on you, too , Severus?" Dumbledore teased, good-naturedly. "Just do me a favor and give it another year or so, hmmm?" The old man peered over his half-moon glasses at his friend and colleague with mischief in his smile. "I don't think we could withstand the scandal." Dumbledore rose, chuckling at his own witticism and shuffled off elsewhere, leaving Snape befuddled and besotted on the sidelines.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Golden Snitch - Isn't It Romantic Challenge**

**Parameters: **I have here a list of 14 scenarios, songs and relationships. Half of them are romantic, half of them are not romantic at all. I won't tell you which is which.

You have to pick up a prompt you like, for example the song "Kiss the girl" and write a story romantic or not.

The entry is worth 10 points. They double of you correctly guess if the prompt you've chosen is romantic or not. I will try not to make them too obvious, but it will be hard either way since I am a hopeless romantic.

You have until the 8th of March to finish the list. Whoever finishes first gets an extra 50 points. Remember to write your house, school and the forum in your author's note for the story to count and also keep the rating down to T. No incest, smut, bestiality.

The minimum word count is 500 words.

11 (pairing) Severus/ Hermione

9 (scenario) going to a ball

**A/N:** Aurora Academy of Magic - Canopus

For the [Event] Isn't it romantic - TGS AU!

Because someone asked me to write a follow-up to Can I Sit Next to You. justsam2012 thanks for asking; it was all the inspiration I needed.

Oh, and the next line from Spoon's song Can You Sit Next to Me for a title since it was a continuation of the first little one-shot.

**Word Count:** 847

**Can You Sit Next to Me**

She checked her reflection one last time in the mirror. _Not a hair out of place,_ she thought as she smoothed down her long skirts one last time. She draped an ermine wrap about her otherwise bare shoulders to ward off the chill in the air before departing her rooms.

Certainly, the annual Yule Ball at Hogwarts was as much about the students as it might have been about the holiday; it allowed for the children to let off steam with friends and companions before the long winter break began. And, without a doubt, it was an opportunity for young romances to blossom.

Hermione Granger had not had as much excitement at school as she did that first year they hosted the ball with their companions from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. She surely had not expected the sweet distraction that Viktor became; she had thought his invitation a polite gesture. Their passion was very much unexpected, and relished by one as love-starved as she had been up to that point in her life.

The remembrance of it gave her a flush of embarrassment. _I was so naive_.

She reached a fork in the corridor were an adjoining hall of Professor's quarters met. In the dimness of the candlelight, his shadow was hardly perceptible, but Hermione had learned to see him even when others who knew him longer had not. Pressed up against a wall, nearly unmoving, Severus Snape melted into the shadows, long and black. His life had changed since the war, but many of his habits had not. _Always hiding. Always just outside of the light_.

She slide up next to him, finding his fingers with her own easily. He grasped at hers tightly, if only momentarily. "May I escort you?" he asked, all formality in case anyone else was within earshot. Theirs was a love affair just finding its footing; a secret, of sorts.

"I had hoped you would," she returned, tucking her hand into the crook of his arm. They made their way down in hall conspicuously — white and black; light and dark.

As they approached the entrance to the Great Hall, he paused, taking her hand into his own and he pried it away from his arm. "Will it always be thus?" she asked, her face downcast.

"Not always," he said, a small smile on his face. "I just don't want share you just yet." He watched her intently; watched the smile creep over her face. She nodded, almost imperceptibly. She squeezed his fingers slightly in agreement before gathering up a handful of fur stole.

"Save me a waltz," she suggested as she gathered up her skirts. She didn't wait for an answer, instead proceeding toward the warmly lit hall. He watched as she raised an arm to return a wave to someone he could not see as her stole fell away from her bare shoulders. His heart skipped.

"Captivating, as always." Dumbledore's ghost had a habit of haunting him. _I guess I deserve it. Me, who should be a ghost, too; still among the living._

"That she is," he agreed.

"And?" the old man prodded. He had even less patience for subtlety since his departure from the mortal coil.

"I am _working_ on it," Severus replied. Somewhat annoyed.

"What's to work on, old man," the even older man teased. "She's beautiful and intelligent, and in love with you. Be a good boy and take a leap of faith!"

"It's only…" his voice felt as if it had been stolen away.

"Check your pocket," he said before he drifted away toward the party. "Hullo there, Filius! Happy Christmas and al— "

_Albus was always one for a party_. Severus shook his head and, straightening his robes, headed inside.

The ball was in full swing, and he'd be blind to not notice Hermione swirl by him, one of many couples, dancing a fiercely fast polka with the new young man who had taken over Potions — a graduate of Ilvermorny. _Sullivan? Or was is Sutfin?_ It hardly mattered. Seeing her, her cheeks flushed with exertion, a broad smile on her face, in the arms of someone of her own age made his heart sink.

He had only just managed to make it to a small sofa tucked into a corner near the libations before he threw himself down. For a moment, just a second of blissful ignorance, he had let Dumbledore's optimism infect him with hope. He was startled by the sharp pain of something digging into his leg. Grasping, quickly, he was confronted by a foreign object in his pocket; something he clearly didn't remember putting there.

He had just pulled forth the small box when he felt a breath of warm air and the distinct pressure of the cushions on his seat adjusting to compensate for another's weight. He turned to find her sitting there all too close for comfort.

"Severus?" she asked, her eyes alight on the box, a smile on her lips. He looked at her, forgetting all the apprehensions and doubts and raised an eyebrow.

"Yes!" was all he heard.


End file.
